Chapter 28 Liam
The dorm room felt different when I walked in.
Not the room itself—same water stain on the ceiling, same cracked plaster, same pile of crew gear on my side and organized index cards on Noah's. But I was different. The room was the same and I was different.
Noah looked up from his laptop. Read my face in about two seconds.
"Good trip?"
"Yeah." I dropped my bag on the floor. Sat on my bed. The mattress sagging under me the way it always did. "Really good."
"Tell me about the race."
So I did. The start. The Eliot Bridge turn, the outside route, the rough water we talked through instead of dying in. The middle miles where the pain was real and we kept talking anyway. The sprint and the finish.
I didn't tell him about the hotel room. Didn't tell him about the hand on the shoulder or the bus ride where I'd fallen asleep against Alex's arm. Just the race.
But Noah could see the rest. He always could.
"You look different," he said.
"People keep telling me that."
"No, I mean—" He paused. Set his laptop aside. The gesture that meant he was giving me his full attention, which from Noah was like a spotlight. "You look like yourself. For the first time since I've known you."
The words landed somewhere deep. Somewhere I hadn't let anyone reach in a long time.
"Yeah," I said. "I think I might be."
Noah nodded. Not smiling—something better. The expression of a person who'd been watching his best friend drown for months and was finally seeing his head above water.
"Good," he said. "About time."
I laid back on my bed. Phone on my chest. The Sunday night sounds of the dorm—someone's music through the wall, a door slamming down the hall, the radiator clicking its slow arrhythmic pulse.
My phone buzzed.
Alex.
A rowing emoji. A heart.
Nothing else. No words. No explanation. Just the two symbols that said everything—we rowed, I love what we did, I'm thinking about you.
The grin took over my face before I could stop it. The stupid, involuntary, whole-face grin that I'd spent months trying to suppress and was done fighting.
Noah glanced over. Saw my face. Picked up his pillow and threw it at me.
"You're disgusting," he said.
"Shut up."
"You're grinning at your phone like a twelve-year-old."
"I said shut up."
"Is it Alex?"
I threw the pillow back. Harder. He caught it. He was smiling.
I texted back. Just the heart. No words needed.
Set the phone on my chest. Stared at the ceiling. The question-mark water stain. The cracks in the plaster I'd memorized over two years of sleepless nights.
But tonight wasn't a sleepless night. Tonight I was tired in the right way—the bone-deep, earned exhaustion of a person who'd done the biggest thing of his life and come home to a room that felt like home for the first time in months.
Top five at the Charles. Scouts writing my name on clipboards. Alex's hand on my shoulder in front of thousands of people.
I closed my eyes.
Three knocks at the door.
Noah glanced up. I didn't move. He raised his eyebrows—you expecting someone?
I wasn't.
I got up. Crossed the room. Pulled the door open.
Emily.
She was standing in the hallway in her coat like she'd walked here without stopping and hadn't decided yet whether she was staying. Her hair was down. Her eyes were steady.
We stared at each other.
Neither of us said anything.
"Hi," she said finally.
"Hey."
"I think it's time we talked," she said.
I stepped back from the door.